The digital application from New Holland Agriculture, FarmMate, was developed by the brand digital marketing team for farmers across three continents, Africa, Asia and Oceania, and it was first launched in key pilot markets such as Australia, Myanmar and Thailand, in March 2019.
Over the past months, appreciation for the app has grown among the users, and it is now also available for the African and Middle Eastern markets. Designed for iOS and Android smartphones and tablets, the application aims to support African and Middle Eastern farmers in their daily activities with agronomic advice and useful tools.
FarmMate has the potential to become the New Holland farmers’ expert friend, offering valuable and detailed advice on how they can get the best from their fields and from the crops they are cultivating. The app is customised for African and Middle Eastern markets in the region, so that the news, promotions, products and agronomic information provided are always relevant to our users, becoming a true working partner for our customers.
FarmMate users will find detailed information on New Holland’s equipment and how it can benefit their farming operations, as well as insights on farming practices, news and dedicated services that will improve their overall after-sales experience with the brand.
Navigation of the FarmMate app is intuitive and straightforward. The main menu offers four choices: Agronomy Tips, Products, Dealers and News. The app provides useful insights on successfully growing the most widespread crops in the user’s area, such as corn, potatoes, rice and wheat. Each crop is explained through a series of card collections organised according to the field operation – tillage, planting, harvesting, and so on. The suggestions and tips provided are constantly updated by the New Holland team, and illustrated with photos, graphics and videos.
FarmMate also provides farmers with useful tools for their daily activities, such as a currency converter, details of promotions on spare parts and services available at their dealership, weather forecasts, and news about New Holland products and activities in their country.
A financing agreement for the Lowlands Livelihood Resilience Project was signed today by Gilbert F. Houngbo, President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), and Zenebu Tadesse Woldetsadik, Ambassador, Permanent Representative of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Agencies in Rome.
The funding includes a $90 million loan from IFAD and $350 million in co-financing from the International Development Association (80 per cent loan and 20 per cent grant) and $11million from the beneficiaries themselves.
The project, primarily designed to help achieve Sustainable Development Goals 1 and 2 (eradicating poverty and hunger) will install small-scale irrigation technology to reduce dependence on erratic rains. It will also help smallholder farmers to invest in research systems for faster adaptation to climate change.
Project activities will also strengthen rangeland and natural resources management, and improve the delivery of basic social services so that rural communities can withstand droughts and other climate shocks, and reduce asset losses. It will also help mitigate conflicts over scarce resources in fragile pastoral and agro-pastoral ecosystems.
“This new project will develop an innovative value chain approach to leverage private investment, productivity and win-win commercial linkages between local businesses,” said Ulaç Demirag, Country Director for Ethiopia. “The approach will enable project clients to sustain and improve their livelihoods after completion of the project.”
The project also aims to improve nutrition by providing education on food handling and food preservation, and the production of more nutritious and diverse crops with access to bio-fortified seeds and technical assistance, including on post-harvest handling.
Women (50 per cent of participants) and young people will especially benefit from project activities that will cover the pastoral and agro-pastoral areas in the Afar, Benishangul-Gumuz, Gambela, Oromia, Somali and Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples’ regions.
Since 1980, IFAD has invested $755.5 million in 19 rural development programmes and projects worth $ 1.8 billion in Ethiopia. These have directly benefited around 11.5 million rural households.
